why board games?

group buy in, opt in, discovery of secrets of the magic, phases of figuring system then exploiting it,

tibetan board games (book of the daed) call & response

"sham but cohesion" non community immunity.

Link: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5844

Imagine yourself a 'witch doctor' who can cast a hex. Each witch doctor tries to fill his opponents' voodoo dolls with pins while trying to keep his own from being filled.

By stirring the cauldron with the bone, the mysterious moving Mystic Skull will magically stop at the various voodoo segments around the board, directing you to place pins in your opponent's voodoo doll or to exchange one of your tokens in order to remove pins from your own doll.

Players should use their tokens wisely and to their best advantage--they may help a player eliminate an opponent or save himself, but when a player uses his tokens up, he is at the mercy of the other players. When a player's doll is filled with pins, he is considered to be under a spell, and is out of the game.

The last player whose doll still has empty pin holes in it is the winner.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/37046

Ghost Stories is a cooperative game in which the players try to defeat the spirit of Wu-Feng, the lord of hell, and his legions of ghosts before they haunt a town and recover the ashes that will allow him to return to life. Each Player represents a taoist monk ghost hunter who is working together with the others to fight off waves of spirits and other beings mostly inspired by eastern mythology.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Paintings

These are certainly my favorite paintings. I could go on (and probably will at another time) about the importance, value and emotional impact of these paintings. These are a visual precedent of mood for my game. I'd like certain periods of the game to be dark and anguished.

Of course I want to create humor... Alack! I'm trying to encapture the entire human condition it seems. My my. That is a daunting proposition.

Link: http://www.jesperjuul.net/text/fearoffailing/

"The second question was whether players would prefer not feeling responsible for failing, and whether the success of casual games consequently could be attributed to the fact that they tend to have energy punishment rather than life punishment, making failure seem less of a direct consequence of player actions. This idea seems to be largely disproved – player appreciation of the game was tied positively to feeling responsible for failure. This suggests that I had been focusing on the wrong part of the punishment system, and that the attraction of casual games is better explained as sparing use of setback punishment: failing in casual games is rarely tied to any substantial setback, and never to having to mechanically replay a game sequence.6 Players still feel responsible for failing, but they are less likely to feel stuck in the game, being forced to replay a part of the game."

This is critical because I don't want the player to feel forced to play through sections of the story over and over. Adn finally to direct the reader to commentary on player experience.

The conclusion must still be that players want to fail as well as win, but that players of the single-player games discussed here do not seek out additional challenge or depth if they do not have to. Perhaps single player games are perceived as designed experiences that players expect to be correctly balanced without having to seek additional challenges themselves?